4 Levels of Buffalo Wings: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi i'm emily and i'm a level one chef hi i'm daniel and i'm a level two chef i'm yuji i've been a professional chef in brooklyn new york for 10 years hey we're making buffalo wings i'm very excited about this i'm not looking to get all fancy with it i just want like frank's red hot and a little bit of butter i'm actually going to be baking my buffalo wings which is a little weird i know but hear me out i am not a professional so deep frying is risky today i'm making my version of buffalo wings they're a little spicy a little sweet with some homemade ranch and it's going to be banging today i'm representing my original version of japanese style kara age buffalo wing kara age is a japanese comfort food i'm going to be marinating this karage waffle wing with a sake and soy sauce and i'm going to finish with potato starch to make it super crispy this is one of everyone's favorite dish in japan these are just your classic buy it at the grocery store wing you got your one and two bone variety so to get my wings ready for take off i just have to pat them dry and then put them on the baking sheet we're not frying them this gives them a little extra opportunity to get crispy my opinion the best buffalo wings come from these the drumsticks you could see all the meat on this and it's easy to get to have to like dig through bones and like stick my tongue in weird places you you know what i mean i'm gonna lay them onto a wire rack patting the chicken wings down with paper towel literally just get all the extra chicken gunk off plus if i didn't do this what else would i have to do right now i'll be using the whole chicken wing for my kara buffalo wing you're not gonna waste any parts of the meat the first thing i'm gonna do is combine all these ingredients into this bowl of chicken wings sake just enough to cover the whole wings and then soy sauce as well you just want to add a little bit so that the chicken has enough flavor then grate the fresh ginger garlic as well wear this shirt because i figured it was kind of buffalo wingy kind of says fun buffalo wing brand the next thing i'm gonna do is put it in the fridge uncovered for like an hour for the skin to get even crispier before i throw this into the refrigerator all i'm gonna do is salt and pepper these things on both sides just to get like a little bit of a base going throw these into the refrigerator for like two hours i wanna make sure that every part of the chicken wing is gonna have nice marinade this is my very favorite combination of marinated ingredients anything will taste good with this i'm going to let it soak for about a half hour the next thing i have to do is make my sauce i'm just making classic buffalo chicken sauce by which i mean i am using a pre-made very classic frank's red hot all i'm gonna do is combine it with a little bit of butter and some worcestershire basically just make frank's red hot a little better sorry frank's red hot you're already great but you could be better like every recipe has frank's red hot the sweet tooth is my thing so i found sweet cholula which is also vinegar-based so you do get that hot sauce flavor all just going into the saucepan to simmer for like five to seven minutes and then while that is warming up i'm gonna use about like a half a cup of butter super easy you can do it on a weeknight and just be done with it you know get your pub experience without leaving your house butter's melted so i'm just gonna turn this thing off and add my hot sauce now usually i'd say like an eighth of a cup but i don't like it a little extra saucy just like me buffalo wing has usually sweet vinegary sauce i wanted to kind of mimic that kind of flavor with simple syrup that is made with dashi a traditional japanese stock has a high umami content and are used in so many different applications in japanese food you start with kombu into cold water kombu is a dry kelp which is grown in northern part of japan i'm raising the temperature until it hits 160 fahrenheit it's been about 15 minutes take cornbread out then bonito flake goes into boiling water and i'm gonna just let it sit and as soon as i put it in i turn it off bonito is a type of fish very similar to tuna which is cured and dried and aged you shave it to make this flake let this sit for about 10-15 minutes and i'm gonna strain it you're not gonna have only sweetness but also has a nice umami flavor into the syrup i'm going to add a little bit of sherry vinegar opted for sherry vinegar instead of worcestershire sauce it's going to give sort of like a brightness to the sauce without being like overly sweet sploosh of our worcestershire a little extra like anchovy salty umami thing and my spices my garlic powder and cayenne buffalo sauce is great i wanted to add my own little twist to it by adding something sweet that is what the honey is for and that's going to go in now this is 200 grams dashi i'm gonna add 200 grams of cane sugar straight in here and keep stirring so that the bottom won't get caramelized it has a very strong dashi smell and sweetness at the same time it's a very interesting and very delicious simple syrup cool this off in an ice bath to make sure that this syrup has the right texture i'm going to add soy sauce buffalo wing has a nice acid so i wanted to add yuzu and a balsamic vinegar and a little fish sauce it's not just a sweet it has really deep complex flavors kind of high um as well i think that's good to go sauce number one down now let's make our dipping sauce and i opt for ranch because i don't understand the height behind blue cheese dressing i just don't i'm making my own ranch from scratch super simple to make gonna start with mayonnaise next we got sour cream a little bit of buttermilk it's all well incorporated mixed together now i can start adding the other stuff which is the onion powder or garlic powder because i can't tell they look exactly the same onion powder goes in garlic powder goes in next is molasses kind of an oddball i know not all ranch dressings have molasses in them doesn't add too much sweetness but you'll know it's there and i think it's gonna play really well with the honey all that's left is a tablespoon or two of fresh parsley some dill weed this dill weed smells so good and last but not least chives and those go into the bowl it looks like it was homemade it's a little darker because of the molasses yep i'm going to make shira a one of the most healthy dressing you can make i'm going to use this tofu we're going to make it into a very creamy sauce by boiling tofu the moisture will come out it will make it a lot easier to infuse the flavor of the dashi into the paste and then transfer it to this towel and i'm going to squeeze the water out as much as possible put this tofu in this container i'm going to pour the dashi that i made earlier and then blend it uh a little bit white soy sauce white soy sauce is mainly mostly from wheat i want to keep the color of this white creamy sauce which is a very important part of the traditional buffaloing also a little bit sesame oil as well to emulsify everything now you can see the texture is nice and thick this will make a really nice dipping sauce for buffaloing when they asked me emily we need a sauce to go on the side of the wings i said you're right of course you're right but which sauce i'm gonna just use blue cheese dressing that's it blue juice dressing right so the next thing i have to do is prep my dressing of course oh it's already open kind of down to one step [Music] that was tough you're having wings you gotta have some vegetables right i opt for cauliflower and carrots this thing's massive it's not as big as my head so i'm just chopping some celery sticks here you know them you love them it's celery sticks i'm just gonna break this up into florets and chop these little carrots easy nice and easy i'm going to have these two vegetables on the side daikon radish cucumbers you can have really nice fresh crunchy vegetables between your wings cauliflower is just bland enough to where it can kind of be a buffer for anything i really only need one depending on how many people you have coming over this thing's massive so you can eat the whole celery stick i'm just gonna use the stickiest bits save these put them in a smoothie get a little health but this is the celery sticks these are the vegetables that's gonna go with my wings now it's time to bake my wings we're just gonna do kind of like a shake and bake thing so i've got cornstarch basically to give us a little extra crisp putting it all in the bag cornstarch cayenne pepper frank's red hot is the right flavor but sometimes you want it a little hotter garlic powder salt like kind of wiggle that this is what we call redistribution of flavor well you don't want one percent of the chicken to have 99 of the flavor you know what i mean this is a pro move i know that this is going to be confusing for some of you so please do follow along closely zip lock and then we're going to just give it a little shake up shake there you go bam they're nice and chilly this spice mix is super simple i've just got a bunch of spices that i'm throwing into some flour paprika i've got some garlic powder sasson tropical and adobo which are things that i grew up with and some cayenne pepper if it's clinging onto the bottom it deserves to stay there you don't have to force it it's all good that's it all that's left to do is take these put them in there i love doing that you want it all coated all covered on all sides and then just put it gently back on the wire rack voila drumsticks are looking powdered up ready to go heating up some oil right now i'm trying to get around like 350. buffalo wings have been sitting here with just this like deliciousness on their skin probably like three wings at a time leave them for like seven eight minutes or at least until the internal temperature is around 165. here listen to them sizzle listen to them pop a little bit a lot of my early jobs were in kitchens for like probably a year straight my only job in the kitchen was to fry chicken learned a few things or at least one thing that typically when the bubbles stop is when the chicken's done so in a whole year of frying chicken that's what i picked up these are done take them and transfer them to cool on the wire rack see it looks nice and crispy finish up the rest of these and then toss them in some sauce i'm going to fry this marinated chicken wings in a combination of sesame and rice rum oil i'm going to use a potato starch coat this wings evenly potato starch will add really nice fluffy and crispy texture put some fresh down healthy spray of pam i mean healthy is not probably the word that we want to use here but i'm just going to try and like shake them off a little as i take them out of the bag get rid of any excess my wings are ready to go i'm going to bake these at 425 for about 20 minutes on each side or as long as it takes to get them to 165 in the middle because no salmonella let's go important rules about frying is don't move if you move it too much before it becomes crunchy you'll lose that crust i like to use sesame oil to have extra aroma to it but to fry everything in a sesame oil is too much sesame flavor rice brown oil is a very good choice to blend it with something else that doesn't have too much flavor to start with once the bottom is crispy enough i'm gonna flip it so that all the crunch will stay five minutes for each side of the wing and then take it out purpose of first fry is to cook meat internally as even as possible second fry is to have a really nice crunchy finish on the crust the whole process should take only one or two minutes for each side done this smells so good by the way my wings are cooked and it's time to toss them in my sauce i just like to put them all in give them a little toss just like this oh they're still a little warm and i want to keep them that way [Music] this looks so good i'm gonna bring the plate over here i'm already noticing that with the addition of the honey the sauce looks like it's a little sticky it's a little more viscous i already had my original buffalo wing sauce i wanted to use the brush to keep it kept on the wings ichimi togarashi is only one kind of red chili pepper i choose to use this pepper so that i can really make the wings super red just like the traditional wings it's not as spicy as it looks it will balance out with the sauce that i made these i'm so excited to eat these probably could google something about plating one of these days but then you know is that the point of me other than that i'm just gonna pop that there and then i'm gonna take a few of these we've got our god tier next level ranch dressing i'm going to plate them now and these are my buffalo wings buffalo wings a la daniel this is my original version of kara age buffaloing [Music] this is awesome i don't want like a beer and a sports game you know there's definitely a little bit of spice with it as you can see i'm like heating up a little bit but the ranch and the honey and the buffalo sauce like cool it down a little bit gives a little bit more of a sticky kind of sweetness sweet and sour and spicy never goes wrong dip it in a tofu sauce sorry it's a little messy and it's just baked oh i just like inhaled some of the sauce up my nose that's okay we're good buffalo wings have nothing to do with the animal but everything to do with the city in upstate new york where a small family operated restaurant gets credit for serving this delicious treat let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs emily used chicken wings that were already broken down which means separated at the elbow joint into the drumette which contains the humerus bone and the wing at which contains the ulna and radius bones both pieces are white meat which means less myoglobin and fat yuji also used the traditional cuts of the drumette and wingette same as emily daniel used whole drumsticks this is a larger cut than the traditional wing it's the lower section of the leg separated at the tarsal joint from the chicken thigh it's higher in fat and myoglobin so it's darker meat emily's buffalo sauce was straightforward it was spicy from the frank's hot sauce that she used hot sauce is typically made from spicy chilies vinegar and salt it's fermented which allows the enzymes in the chilies to break down larger molecules imparting new flavors and aromas in addition to the heat which comes from the capsaicin in the chilies daniel used cholula sweet habanero sauce which is named after the city of cholula in puebla mexico it's made from a combination of pekin habanero and arbol peppers the peking and habaneros are extremely spicy more than thirty thousand scoville units which is the standard for measuring heat in chiles daniel also added a bit of honey to balance the spiciness the sugar in the honey can coat some of the heat and pain receptors on your tongue and balance the burn you know it's more like not like ouch ouchy ouch ouch yuuji sauce was based on a japanese broth called dashi to make it kombu is soaked in cold water and brought just to below boiling the cold water allows the umami flavors to be released into the water emily dipped her buffalo wings in traditional blue cheese dressing which adds a nice pungent note to balance the spice and acidic flavors in her sauce that's it blue cheese dressing put it in a put in a little tiny bowl and you're done daniel made his own ranch dressing a combination of herbs with a base of mayonnaise and sour cream mayonnaise is an emulsion of phospholipids from egg yolks vinegar and oil and is an excellent base for holding the herbs that he added yuji made a sauce based on tofu this is really level three he removed as much water as possible from the firm tofu which increased the fatty creaminess and allowed the proteins in the tofu to combine and bond without interfering with the water he added his flavorful dashi and a dash of white soy sauce which is a lighter amber color due to the higher ratio of wheat to soybeans all three of our chefs coated their wings prior to cooking them emily baked her cornstarch coated wings in a very hot oven there's enough fat in wings to make them crispy when baked the way that you know a brand is good is if it has a name attached to it like frank like pam in this case thank you pamela for your efforts daniel fried his flour coated drumsticks coating the chicken with starches allows the starch granules to absorb water from the chicken the granules then swell and separate from other starch granules when they hit the hot oil the starch granules form a rigid and crispy network with a porous structure which can absorb some of the sauce when the wings are tossed in it yuji also coated his wings however he used potato starch which has a coarser granule size which makes it extremely crunchy yuji twice fried his wings in a combination of flavorful sesame oil and rice bran oil the first time is to cook the wings and the second time at a higher temperature to dehydrate the starchy coating impart golden brown colors from the mayard reaction and crisp the wings substantially wings are a fabulous party food for a crowd or any type of gathering next time you're in the mood to bake or fry the best wings we hope you'll use some of these ideas from our three incredible chefs [Music]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 1,160,788

Keywords: 4 levels, baked buffalo wings, baked chicken wings, baked wings recipe, best buffalo wings sauce, buffalo chicken wings, buffalo hot wings, buffalo wing recipes, buffalo wings, chicken wings, chicken wings recipe, easy buffalo wings, easy buffalo wings recipe, epicurious, epicurious 4 levels, four levels, how to make buffalo wing sauce, how to make buffalo wings, how to make hot wings, how to make wings, make buffalo wings, make hot wings, spicy buffalo hot wings

Id: l7n_N3Vl_Fs

Length: 17min 42sec (1062 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022